


things worth hurting for (i choose you)

by teacats



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, HAROLD THEY'RE LESBIANS, New York City, Post-Season/Series 12, Yaz Is A Gay Mess, angst (slightly), awkward 13, clueless 13, dramatic confessions, fluff? sorta?, intense arguments with central park ducks, pining so much pining, thasmin, this is so sappy lord help me, yaz & the doctor travel alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:08:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23228383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teacats/pseuds/teacats
Summary: Sometimes all you need to confess your feelings is a nudge in the right direction from your crush's long lost friend.
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Thirteenth Doctor & Amy Pond & Rory Williams, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 68





	things worth hurting for (i choose you)

**Author's Note:**

> i swore off writing fanfics for so long but this hiatus broke me. i am so ashamed. please keep in mind that i am terrible at this, i'm just dumb and gay and miss this show a lot 
> 
> ALSO forgot to mention this but the story takes place after ryan and graham decide to leave the tardis and yaz decided to stay!

"So." The Doctor turned to Yaz and smiled, face washed in orange light from the TARDIS console. "What'll it be?"

Yaz grinned back at her. "Anywhere at all."

"Anywhere it is!" The Doctor crowed. She pulled a few levers and flicked a switch and the TARDIS thrummed and jerked forwards, out of space, out of time. The Doctor turned another knob and said fondly: "There we go, darling, that's great. Wherever you want. You're incredible." She kissed her fingers and pressed them against the console tenderly. This mundane, innocent action caused a lump to form in Yaz's throat, though she couldn’t explain exactly why. She forced herself to glance away and fixed her eyes instead on the wall behind her friend's head.

"So. Me and Yaz on an adventure." The Doctor announced, turning back to Yaz with a huge grin. "The Doc and Yaz, off to see the stars."

She was dancing around the elephant in the room, the ticking bomb neither of them wanted to acknowledge. Yaz recognized the determined cheeriness in her tone. The Doctor very, very clearly did not want to talk about Ryan and Graham. And if Yaz truly knew her, she was well aware that the Doctor would never bring them up again at all.

"Doctor." Yaz said, clearing her throat. "I think we should-"

"Go bungee jumping?" The Doctor cut her off, completing the sentence so bizarrely that Yaz didn’t even bother rebuking and just stared at her in baffled silence. "Just what I was thinking! Once I went bungee jumping on Kalibrax Seven- they don’t even secure you with a rope, they just push you off the side! Actually, now that I think about it, that wasn’t bungee jumping, that was the time I got scheduled for execution because-"

"That's not what I meant." Yaz interrupted the jumbled story, her tone sharper than before. "We need to talk about Ryan and Graham."

The Doctor cocked her head, then scrunched up her face in disapproval. "Nah." She turned her back and reached for the console again.

"Yes." Yaz insisted, grabbing the Doctor's arm. "Come on. You must have something to say about them leaving. I just want to-"

"Well, I don't!" the Doctor snapped, pulling her arm out of from Yaz's grip. "Could you just leave me alone?!"

She turned back to the console and hunched over the controls, making a point of keeping her back to Yaz and her face as close to the surface as possible. The TARDIS hummed louder for a brief second- whether chiding the Doctor or Yaz, Yaz couldn’t tell.

She stalked away and hid herself in an alcove near the corner, squashed up with her arms around her knees. Her eyes burned. Angrily, she rubbed the sleeve of her jumper across them. She would not cry. She would not let the Doctor make her cry. The Doctor surely hadn't meant to be so aggressive. She was never mad. She was just a private person. Yaz had no right to get this worked up over nothing.

But it wasn’t nothing, and Yaz didn’t want to acknowledge that, but it was true. It was just the two of them now. And every grievance she caused the Doctor hurt twice as much, set them back twice as far. She wanted to know exactly what to say at all times. She wanted to be calm and understanding. God, she wanted to understand her. She wanted to be there for her. And making her lash out, making her clam up- that hurt Yaz more than she could explain.

A shadow fell over the alcove, and someone squeezed in beside Yaz. She raised her head, flushing crimson, only to come face to face with the Doctor's wide eyes. Yaz almost expected an apology, a query as to how she was feeling, but she knew better than that. The Doctor just offered her a hesitant smile and said: "We're here."

"Where is here?" Yaz asked, swiping her sleeve across her eyes again to dry any stray tear that may have escaped.

The Doctor's nose scrunched up. "Not really sure. Wherever the TARDIS took us, I suppose. Let's go find out?"

"Okay." Yaz made herself smile. "Okay, let's go."

"Brilliant!" The Doctor grinned brightly, then heaved herself out of the little alcove. "Whew. Tight fit. Need a hand?"

It was impossible to stay mad at her for long. Yaz took the offered hand and pulled herself up, smiling genuinely this time.

The two charged out of the TARDIS doors, ready for anything, ready to face down aliens or fight off monsters or-

A squeal of tires, a string of colorful swears, a flash of metal. Yaz flung her arm back and pushed the Doctor back as an automobile swerved wildly away from them, still yelling curses through its open window. The two backed away, stumbling, onto the pavement. The TARDIS had, apparently, deposited them right on the curb.

"You just saved my life once again, Yasmin Khan." The Doctor remarked, looking impressed. "Where would I be without you."

"Plastered on the windshield of some car, I'd expect." Yaz craned her neck in an attempt to see where the vehicle had gone. "That was a really weird car."

"We're somewhere in the early 1940's." Glancing at her sonic screwdriver, the Doctor's face clouded over. "New York City. Not sure why the TARDIS would take us here, but we might as well look around, eh?"

"Sure." Yaz said agreeably, though the Doctor's expression worried her.

The Doctor shut the TARDIS door and offered Yaz her arm. "Shall we?"

"Oh, much obliged." Yaz hooked her arm through the Doctor's. They set off down the street.

Yaz marveled at the bustling city around her. She'd been to New York once- with the Doctor and Ryan and Graham, when they had met Nikola Tesla- but it was much more modern now, and they were in a different neighborhood. Skyscrapers towered above them, and busy crowds jostled up and down the sidewalks. Some stared, taken aback by Yaz's skinny jeans and the Doctor's general appearance, but nobody seemed too interested in their presence. They strolled down the block, and Yaz glimpsed a flash of green around a corner.

"Central Park!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Haven't been there since… 2013, if I remember correctly."

"That wasn’t too long ago." Yaz said. "Only seven years."

"A few billion for me, actually." The Doctor responded casually. "Let's go see the ducks. Some of them are good friends of mine. Very mysterious creatures, ducks."

Still trying to wrap her head around what the Doctor had just said, Yaz followed her across the street and into the park.  
It was a warm and sunny day, and the sun cast shadows on the lawns and between the leaves of the shady trees. Yaz and the Doctor settled on the grass by one of the small lakes. A young couple sat on a picnic blanket a little ways away from them, and sure enough, a flock of ducks swam lazily near the shore.

"I love this spot." The Doctor sighed contentedly. She lay down, arms crossed behind her head, and gazed up at the sky. Yaz lay down beside her, but instead of watching the sky she watched her. The Doctor's eyes were shining, reflecting the wispy white clouds that floated above them. Her cheeks were flushed. Her hair fanned out behind her, a few stray strands lying across her nose. Yaz stared at her lips, ever so slightly parted, and the lump built up in her throat again. She whispered hoarsely. "Doctor."

The Doctor rolled over so that they were facing. "Yeah?"

Yaz had nothing more to say. Her eyes traveled from the Doctor's eyes back to her lips. The Doctor's eyebrows raised ever so slightly, and for a moment Yaz thought she was about to say something, to tell her something important.

The Doctor jumped to her feet. "I'm gonna go down and have a chat with the ducks now. I can introduce you if you want."

Yaz blinked, crestfallen. "Oh. No thanks, I think I'll just rest here."

"Okay." The Doctor shed her coat and patted its pocket, making sure her sonic screwdriver was still there. "Watch my sonic for me."

Yaz nodded and watched her scrambled down the turf to the banks of the lake. She turned her head, fixing her gaze away from the Doctor, trying to steady her thoughts. Up the hill, the woman on the picnic blanket saw her staring and waved cheerfully. Yaz, lonely and desperate to clear her head, got up and walked over to join the woman and her companion.

"Hi there!" the woman called as Yaz approached. She was round-faced and cheery, clad in a blue dress and a flowery shawl. Her hair was red and cut in a short bob. "You seemed a bit lost."

"I'm just a bit antsy." Yaz smiled, tucking her hands in her pockets. "I barely know the city. My friend is my guide, and she's a bit preoccupied."

"Your friend would be the one down by the lake?" the woman asked, eyebrows furrowed.

Yaz nodded. The woman narrowed her eyes the slightest bit, her gaze lingering oddly on Yaz's leather jacket and red sneakers, then brightened once more.

"I know how you feel." She said. "When we first moved here-" she nudged the man dozing beside her on the blanket- "it took us months to learn how to navigate properly."

"How long have you lived here?" Yaz asked politely.

"Oh, about four years. Let's see. We came in '38…"

"Three years." Murmured the man on the blanket.

"Yes, that's it. Just three." The woman squinted up at Yaz, shading her face, then glanced away at the lake and rasied her eyebrows in surprise. "What the hell is your friend doing down there?"

Yaz followed her gaze. The Doctor had waded into the lake and seemed to be having a heated argument with one of the ducks, flapping her arms about and splashing water in sprays. The duck quacked at her aggressively, the other ducks flocking behind him as if poised to attack. Things seemed to be getting ugly, fast.

"DOCTOR!" Yaz bellowed, cupping her hands around her mouth. "LEAVE THAT DUCK ALONE!"

The Doctor turned and yelled something intelligible in return.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

The Doctor sighed deeply down in the lake and, throwing one last insult at the duck, waded back out and began trudging up the hill.

Yaz turned back to the woman. "Sorry. She's a bit weird."

The woman didn’t answer. Her eyes were wide and stunned, fixed on the figure approaching them from the shore. Her face had gone deathly pale, her hands clamped over her mouth in shock. The man who had been napping on the blanket was wide awake now, sitting straight up, shaking his head ever so slightly.

"Oh my god." The woman whispered. "Oh my god."

"It can't be." The man said. "There's no chance."

Yaz's eyes flickered between the two of them. "Um. Is everything okay?"

"Where do you know her from?" the woman breathed.

"Who?" Yaz asked. She turned, watching the Doctor clamber up towards them. "You mean the Doctor? She just showed up one day. We travel together."

The woman squeaked. The man stood up, fists clenched. Yaz backed away, concerned. "What's wrong? Did I say something?"

Behind her, the Doctor called out pleasantly: "Made some new friends, I see?"

And then she froze.

Yaz glanced from the Doctor to the couple, desperate, scared. Nobody spoke. And then the woman, hesitantly, spoke. "Doctor?"

"Amy?" the Doctor replied, her voice very, very small.

"It is you!" the woman laughed giddily, lurching forwards and crushing the Doctor in a tight hug. The Doctor stood, stunned, arms pinned to her sides. "You're a woman! You're short!"

"Amy." The Doctor murmured. "I'm so sorry."

Yaz's chest ached. Her eyes burned again, and she couldn’t understand why; all she knew was that something was painful about this woman hugging the Doctor. Something about the casual way she touched her made Yaz hurt.

The woman- Amy? -released the Doctor as the man stepped forwards, hesitant. "Um, hi."

"Rory." The Doctor said. And then they were hugging too, and Yaz's head spun.

"Ponds." The Doctor beamed. "My Ponds."

She turned to Yaz, eyes sparkling, joyful and beautiful in the afternoon light. "Yaz, these are Amy and Rory. They're my friends. And Ponds, this is the Brilliant Yasmin Khan."

"Your newest replacement?" Amy asked lightly, though Yaz could tell she was hurt for a reason she couldn't quite pick up on.

"No." the Doctor hesitated. "A few in between."

"How long has it been for you?"

"A few billion years."

The phrase rang familiar in Yaz's head. A billion years since the Doctor had last visited Central Park. A billion years since she last saw Amy and Rory.

"Doctor." She said. "These people… you traveled with them once? Like you do with me?"

"Spot on as always, Yasmin Khan." The Doctor grinned at her nervously. Yaz tried to catch her gaze, to comfort her, but the Doctor had looked away again.

"How many between us?" Amy asked.

The Doctor counted on her fingers. "Just two. One of them was- you know, the girl from the Dalek Asylum. Oswin Oswald."

"Oswin?" Amy seemed confused, then all of a sudden realization dawned on her. "Rory, the one who called you Nina!"

"I thought she died?" Rory asked.

"It's a long story. The one I traveled with was called Clara and she was…" the Doctor swallowed. "A sort of version of her."

"And the other?"

"Bill Potts. She's among the stars somewhere." The Doctor shuffled in her place, clearly not enjoying this topic of conversation. "Let's go get a coffee or something, shall we? Good idea, Doctor. Let's go."

She bounded away down the hill, leaving the others to follow her.

***

Amy fell into step beside Yaz as they walked.

"So." She said straightforwardly. "You fancy the Doctor, don’t you?"

Yaz stopped short, then picked up her pace to reach Amy again. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, you can't fool me. I can tell. I used to have a bit of a crush on him too, you know." She smirked, as though the thought now amused her.

"Him?" Yaz repeated.

"You know, back when he was a man. Even though this new look…" Amy raised her eyebrows expressively. "I mean, if I wasn't married, I would not pass on that."

Yaz laughed, more relieved than amused (she was married! She was married!), following Amy's gaze down to the Doctor's form marching through the park below them. "How could you tell I...?"

"You get that look in your eyes whenever she talks." Amy said plainly. "Like she's the brightest thing in the world."

Yaz felt herself blush magnificently.

Amy lay a friendly hand on her arm. "I feel like I should warn you though."

Confused, Yaz looked up at her. "Warn me?"

"Loving the Doctor is… hard." Amy said. It seemed as though she was looking for the right words. "They don't stay in your life like you would want them to. They sort of… flicker. In and out. And sometimes they just leave."

"But I'm traveling with her." Yaz said firmly. "She can't just leave."

"One day you'll leave her." Amy's gaze was fixed somewhere on the horizon. "You don’t think so now, but you will leave. Because you've had enough, or because you want to settle down, or because you die. But you can never stay with the Doctor forever. And once you do leave… they never really look back. You heard her. It's been a billion years for her and she's never tried to find us. And that's okay, because she's so old. We can't expect her to keep us forever."

"Did she leave you here?" Yaz asked, dreading the answer.

"We got sent back." Amy said. "Rory got sent back, and I followed him. It wasn't even a question. I chose him over the Doctor. I don't think I was the first to do that. And I think she's always afraid it'll happen again."

Yaz opened her mouth to reply, but they had already caught up with the Doctor and Rory, and she wasn't in the mood to open the issue up with them. She kept her thoughts stewing inside silently as the four sat down to eat in a little coffeeshop down the street.

"Hey, you alright?" the Doctor whispered, sitting down beside her at the table. "I'm sorry about this. Wish this could have happened when

you weren't here."  
She said this so casually, so nonchalantly, as though she never thought twice before wishing Yaz out of the picture. Yaz took this numbly. She drank a cup of tea and nibbled at a scone and listened in on the Doctor's and the Ponds' rapid-fire conversation about people and places she didn’t know: River Song, Arizona, Weeping Angels, fish fingers, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, a graveyard, a book publication. The chatter dulled to a buzz in her ears. Any other time, she knew, this talk would have fascinated her. She would have joined in, asked questions, tried to understand more about the Doctor's mysterious past. But today Amy's words still echoed in her head. She knew Amy had only meant to help, but she had pointed out things Yaz hadn't considered. The Doctor had lived so many lives before she'd met Yaz, loved and lost so many people. Yaz knew nothing about her past. Why would the Doctor ever choose her over the rest? How could the Doctor ever prefer her over everyone else?

For the first time in her life, Yaz wished she was home.

Finally, the Doctor and the Ponds parted. Amy hugged Yaz goodbye too- a tight hug, her chin resting on Yaz's head- then leaned over and whispered in her ear. "What I told you before- don’t listen to me. Don't give up on her, okay? The Doctor doesn't need protecting. Some things are worth hurting for."

She let go of Yaz and punched her gently in the shoulder. "Go get her, tiger."

"Go get who?" The Doctor asked, shooting a questioning look at Yaz.

"Nobody." Yaz smiled. "Goodbye Amy, Rory. See you sometime?"

"We're not going anywhere!" Amy flashed them a thumbs up, and the two duos turned their separate ways.

***

And then they were back in the TARDIS, familiar orange lights and echoing metal floor. The Doctor leaned back on the console, her coat tossed over a railing, and grinned up at the ceiling. "Some afternoon, huh?"

She glanced brightly at Yaz, as though awaiting her response, but Yaz was elsewhere. Her thoughts were still jumbled, confused, sorting out what Amy had told her.

"Doctor," she said finally, crossing her arms, "I think we should talk."

The Doctor sagged. "I don't think-"

"No." Yaz said firmly. "I know you don't like talking about your past for whatever reason, but I… I think I should know it anyway. Even just the slightest bit."

The Doctor sighed, defeated, running a hand through her hair. "What do you want to know?"

"Why did you take me with you?"

The Time Lord's eyebrows furrowed. Clearly, this was not the question she had expected. "Because you're my friend, Yaz."

"But-" Yaz's voice broke slightly. "You have so many others. Amy and Rory, and the ones after them. The one who came before me. And I'm sure there were others before them. I just… you have so many people who adore you, just waiting around the world for you to come back for them. And you never do."

"They left me." The Doctor said simply.

"I don't want to become that." And she meant it. There was nothing better for her on Earth, nothing she wanted more than to travel with this madwoman in her box. She thought about Amy and Rory, about the way they chose each other over the Doctor without hesitation. She could never do that. She couldn’t picture falling in love in a world with no Doctor. And she knew damn well why. "I don't want to leave you."

"I know." The Doctor sounded old, older than Yaz had ever imagined. "I know."

"No, Doctor." She rubbed her eyes. Amy's words came back to her. Some things are worth hurting for. "I mean it. I don't ever want to leave you. There's nothing for me out there."

The Doctor shook her head slightly. "Don't say that. There's a whole world out there for you to explore one day. You'll see."

"I'd be alone." Yaz said, desperately. She had entirely forgotten what she'd planned to say. This conversation was careening out of control.

"Nah," the Doctor said, dismissively. "Lovely girl like you. You'll find someone."

"No." This was too much. Yaz's heart thumped against her ribs like a war drum. "Not out there."  
The room was very, very quiet for a moment.

"Oh." The Doctor said.

"Yeah." A tear had escaped her eye. Yaz wiped it away, knowing the Doctor could see it. It didn’t matter anymore. She knew the truth.

"You don’t have to say anything. I know there've been others loads more impressive than me, and others that you loved, and compared to them I've barely known you. So just pretend this never happened, okay?"

Neither of them spoke. The TARDIS thrummed softly. Yaz stared off at the far wall, anywhere but the woman standing in front of her, anywhere but here.

And then the Doctor laughed.

"Yaz," she said, "you astound me every time."

She pushed herself forwards, taking Yaz's hand in hers and squeezing it.

"I have been many, many different faces." She said. "And every time, I looked for different friends. Different people. Amy and Rory were good for me then. You're the one I need here. Now."

Yaz's eyes met hers. Greens and brows. Galaxies and nebulas. "Some things are worth hurting for."

"If I hurt, I want it to be for you." The Doctor murmured. "I choose you, Yasmin Khan. And if I hadn't met you that night on the train, I would search for you, and I would find you, and I would choose you over and over and over again. I choose you. I ain't quittin' you."

Yaz blinked at her. Miraculously, she felt herself laugh. "Did you just quote Night at the Museum?"

The Doctor's nose scrunched up. "Oh, so that's where that's from? I thought it seemed relevant."

Yaz leaned forward and kissed her. The Doctor froze for a moment, then leaned into it, cupping Yaz's chin and tilting her face up towards her. Yaz felt the Doctor hold onto her arm as if afraid she would disappear.

They broke apart.

"That was new." The Doctor said, sounding pleasantly stunned. "Never kissed a girl while being a girl. Far better than I imagined."

Yaz bit her lip to keep from laughing, then gently tucked a strand of loose blonde hair behind the Doctor's ear.

"So." She said. "It's okay if we..?"

"Absolutely!" the Doctor's face split into a smile, bright and genuine and beautiful. "You'll have to remind me how these things work, though. I'm a bit rusty. Do we break a glass cup? There's something about breaking a cup, right?"

"That's marriage and neither of us are even Jewish." Yaz said, then cocked her head. "At least I think you aren't."

"Ah, so never mind then." The Doctor said. "We'll just make it up as we go along, shall we?"

"Works for me."

The Doctor grinned at her. "Alright then, girlfriend. Where to now?"

Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks flushed. Yaz felt lighter than she had in years.

"Anywhere." She said. "Anywhere at all."

**Author's Note:**

> sorry for pulling amy and rory into this. i warned y'all


End file.
